


You're Safe

by fetchmeabook



Series: Right Here With You [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Injured Doctor (Doctor Who), Sick Doctor (Doctor Who), don't tell the doctor though, no beta we die like men, the master being a soft boi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fetchmeabook/pseuds/fetchmeabook
Summary: When the Master is left unchecked, he goes out looking for the Doctor.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Right Here With You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820986
Comments: 15
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

“JUST WORK ALREADY!”

“ARE YOU EVEN CAPABLE OF FUNCTIONING PROPERLY?”

“I’LL LEAVE YOU IN THE RUINS IF I HAVE TO!”

“YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM!”

The Master, clever as always, was one known to cheat death. Death was for other people. And something as obtusely named as a ‘Death Particle’ was laughable in his eyes. While the Doctor had run from the activation of one such particle, her way of cheating death, the Master had cheated in his own sort of way. Knowing full well what exactly had been kept in the Matrix chamber as well as in the Panopticon, the Master simply had to play the game and cheat death as well. At this point in his life he knew more ways to cheat death than death did. While he had managed an escape, his creations hadn’t been as durable or kept their promised longevity. Those who hadn’t been as thick skulled managed the crossing, the rest hadn’t. Only a handful managed to cross over with the Master, eight at most, but it quickly became apparent that Timelords were never meant to become Cybermen. Between the brain capacity and regeneration, the suits couldn’t hold the conversion for long before they died off. There was a reason as to why the Cybermen were created from lower life forms - like humans. 

There had been one of his Cybermasters that had attempted to cling on to life, but they too were soon just another to fall into death’s hands once more. Henceforth, the Master found himself alone once more. All around him having abandoned him yet again. 

Not long after his escape he had come across the Doctor’s Tardis, still as blue and Earth-like as ever. Evidently the Doctor had not been around and with the Tardis abandoned there was no one to try and stop him. Upon taking control of the ship, the Master had discovered that either the Doctor or the Tardis Matrix had taken a preference for keeping time in a way similar to how humans kept time. In the nearly year he had had her Tardis it had refused to switch to the universal standard for keeping time. The ship had also refused to do quite a number of other commands and fixes the Master had attempted, in reality the Tardis had refused to accept any change at all. She was still mad about the whole ‘paradox machine’ incident. Every incident and attempt had culminated in where the Master found himself now. He was attempting, for the third day in a row, to get to another planet that he could easily overthrow the government of while the Tardis huffed about and instead chose to strand him in deep space. There were wires and circuitry exposed in the console from his attempt to override the matrix protocols but that had not done anything. As a last resort, in his rage, he had just begun to bang about on the unit in an effort to force the Tardis to bend to his will. Yet, the Tardis would not yield to him. 

“FINE!” He yelled as he hit the console unit once more before stalking off to somewhere deep within the Tardis. She’d already deleted a few rooms where he had taken residence in but had refused to touch any of the ones the Doctor had liked. What was once her bedroom was now his and so forth and so on, if the Tardis was playing favorites then he could just adapt to them. He retreated to the bedroom that had once been the Doctor’s and waited until the Tardis was done. Reluctantly he thought that he might just have to think of a different planet to overthrow if the Tardis refused to take him to the one he wanted to go to. It wouldn’t be difficult to find another planet. If all else failed, he could just try and take over Earth to get the Doctor’s attention again. Nothing else seemed to be worthy of her intervention.

‘Another planet before Earth, one last bit of fun for a while,’ he decided. 

The Tardis would only allow him to go to one small colony planet before she began acting up again. While over the course of the year she had been a rather tetchy piece of machinery it had only been up until relatively recently that she began refusing to go places for days or weeks on end. While on the little colony planet the master began to see why. It had been a criminal colony, a far off world that would be the beginnings of a prison planet.

The Oncoming Storm, they had been calling her, was locked up. They had claimed that it was for life this time. The Master scoffed at this, if the Doctor was anything it was inventive and she’d find her way out. When he’d played into their idea that she was locked up for life, he’d asked who had finally captured her. His blood ran cold when he heard the name Judoon. He had heard stories over the years of the Doctor, in their various different incarnations, breaking in and out of Stormcage for River Song. And, had the prisoners said the Doctor was locked up at Stormcage he’d have had little faith in the guards managing to keep her there long. But Stormcage was not run by the Judoon. Stormcage was secure but it was civil. The Judoon were brutish and blunt, if you did not listen to what they told you to do you’d quickly find yourself regretting it. 

It was on rare occasions that the Master actually found himself worrying about anything. For a moment in those last few seconds of Gallifrey he had worried that his escape would not work or that if it did his creations wouldn’t be able to make it with him. In his mind those had been just times to worry. He had already accepted his death, but made ample attempts to prolong meeting it, so the idea of him dying on Gallifrey was worrisome but poetic in the end. So, for the third time in a single incarnation, the Master found himself worrying. He worried not for himself, but for the Doctor instead. 

With the prison colony in shambles, the Master returned to the Doctor’s Tardis. As he had listened to the prisoners speak of what they knew had happened to the Oncoming Storm, anger built up in the Master in a way that it hadn’t in several thousand years. He had been angry at the Timelords for keeping the secret to how they developed regeneration and the torment they had put the Doctor through, but the anger of that meant nothing to what he was currently feeling. Destructive anger, murderous anger, the kind of anger that the universe shook with fear from, that was the kind of anger that the Master felt. Anger and rage raced through his veins as the world around him melted into a deadly red. To mess with the Doctor was to mess with the Master, and the Master had well-earned the fear that followed his name throughout the universe. 

This time when he caused sparks to fly from the Tardis console it was from his attempt to take the Tardis directly to the Doctor. “FIND HER,” he had bellowed at the machine that was taking too long for his liking. He knew by now that if the Tardis actually took a command from him it was not out of fear but out of an unspoken agreement, I’ll stop what I was doing if you do as I ask. 

The Tardis stopped, not within the walls of the Judoon prison, but in the empty space around it. If there was anything the Master hated it was something trying to stand in his way or stop him, unless it was the Doctor. No matter how much he tried, the Master could never truly hate the Doctor. Looking over the reading on the Tardis, the Master said aloud, “It’s cute that you think that will do anything.” The readings showed that there was a shield up around the prison, likely to make escapes all the more difficult. Having read the Tardis’ exact readings on the makeup of the shield, the Master set to work, “No intelligent thoughts amongst any of you and if there was you’d have made this challenging.”

From what the Master read, the shield was on a sort of pulse pattern. It managed to repel everything that tried to enter the shield’s near vicinity but every two galactic standard hours the shield would be down for a few microseconds. While the Master hated waiting, he was quite good at playing the long game. He activated the Tardis’ cloaking protocol and set the scanners to watch for any changes in the Judoon’s shield. The Master sat back and waited. 

At a quarter till two hours, the shields began to fluctuate and the Master had to hold back a laugh at how simple the Judoon’s minds must have been to think that these shields could hold anything in or out. After that getting in wasn’t that difficult, nor was getting past the swaths of Judoon. While the Master had never understood his oldest friend’s affection for Earth, even at the Academy it hadn’t made sense, he could at least understand that there were practices of the planet that reflected those of the rest of the universe. The Judoon and Earth’s police force were remarkably alike, brutish and bastardly. They both also thought that they were always in control when in fact it was easy to get ahead in the game of civility which they clearly didn’t understand. 

The Master slipped inside both the shield and the facility with laughable ease. He allowed the Tardis to take control of where they would be landing as he assumed she’d wish to get as close to her thief as possible. With the Tardis on firm, semi stable, ground, the Master exited her doors in search of his best enemy. Finding himself in a dimly lit stone alcove he waited for a moment to listen to those around him. Peeking out, the Master found that he was in a hall of sorts; he ducked back into the dark and closed his eyes. He could hear the sounds of prisoners in their cells and the pacing of the brainless Judoon watching them coming from one side of the hall. The other end was a different story. It was quiet, eerily quiet. Ducking out again, the Master could see that the louder end of the hall had at least some lights going down the hall whereas the other end only seemed to have a single light off in the distance. Having spent time in solitary confinement in a high security prison before, the Master thought that the dark end of the hall was his best shot. Before venturing on ward, he returned to the Tardis to dispose of his coat, the less chance to make a noise the better, and to retrieve his Tissue Compression Eliminator. With the TCE in his pocket, the Master went in search of the Doctor. He knew going down the dark hall in a Judoon prison wasn’t the best idea. But, the Master was not known for having great ideas, just ideas that were sure to catch the Doctor’s attention. He followed the hall down to where the single light had been and found that the hallway spilled out into another silent alcove. This space was much larger than where the Tardis had chosen to park but it was just as unsettling. 

While the Master had never been confined to the Judoon’s form of solitary confinement, he had heard stories over the millennium of what it looked like. The isolation and vacant feeling fit in perfectly with every story he’d ever heard. There were three doors in the alcove that he assumed faced the cold vacuum of space, two sat slightly ajar while the third was tightly shut. He slowly made his way towards the closed door but quickly ducked into one of the open cells to hide. Hearing the heavy, sluggish footsteps of the intellectually null Judoon officer was enough to put a chill down anyone’s spine, but with the idea that there was someone here that had to deal with them regularly was something even the Master wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. 

He listened to the Judoon officer’s footsteps as they moved past him and ventured onwards to another cell, the only occupied one. The cell door creaked open with such a disgusting sound that, if he wasn’t looking for the Doctor, that he would have contemplated running. Thinking of running from a scene was unlike him, and he knew this, but the only thing that was keeping him there was the prospect of finding the Doctor. It was a long while before he heard the cell door open again and the officer left. While the Master was known throughout the universe for their destructive and cruel acts, those actions were never towards the Doctor. Yes, they had been mean but they were never cruel. And if his suspicions about the occupied cell were valid, then the Doctor saw nothing but cruelty at the moment. He had to intervene.

The footsteps of the officer passed by him but it was still another minute or two before the Master dared move from hiding. When he had deemed it alright to step out of hiding, the Master made his way directly over to the closed cell door. To his luck the Judoon had, evidently, planned on returning. It only took a single definitive push for the door to creak open. He curled his fingers around the edge of the door and pushed it open further until he could see inside. 

The Master could only recount but a handful of times where they had caused deliberate harm to come to the Doctor in all their lives. And if they had caused deliberate harm the worst thing to come from that was that their friend would regenerate. Beyond that it would only be petty inconveniences, things that would be tedious for the Doctor but would ultimately pin their friend’s attention on them. In this current body he hadn’t caused any deliberate harm to come to his friend, yet for the first time in numerous lives, but he felt he was to blame for her current situation. Him, feeling blame being set on him. It truly was a rare occurrence. But the feeling quickly turned from being blamed to panic and finally to fear; all three emotions that he was not used to dealing with in himself. In others, the Master could handle the situation that brought those three emotions out but in himself he had no idea how to handle them. 

To his panic and fear lay before him, unconscious on the ground of a dark Judoon prison cell, was the Doctor. 

“Doctor?” He asked the silent universe that had constantly failed him in a broken, childlike voice. He knew she could not hear him. 

In an instant, the air of suave sophistication that the Master showed the universe was gone. A subconscious instinct to protect and defend kicked in, the Master knew not where it came from, as he rushed over to her crumpled body. She was laying on her side, her overcoat covered in numerous stains and rough patches. First he checked for her breathing and if her hearts were in working order. Her hearts were beating slowly, dangerously slowly, and the only breathing she was doing was the shallow sort that wouldn’t be good for an individual in the long run. He checked for the possibility of broken bones before gently moving her to her back. Though unconscious, the Doctor let out a hiss of what sounded like pain the moment her lower spinal vertebrae hit the ground. He, as the fear became stronger, slipped his arms under his friend’s prone body before gingerly lifting her from the ground. When he stood up fully he felt as one of her arms shifted and heard his friend mew in pain once more. From just those few short moments, the Master decided that after the Doctor was safe and stable he would destroy the Judoon for what they had done.

While he couldn’t move with her as fast as he would have liked, he knew that he was likely to have a short bit of time to make it back to the Tardis before the officer returned. As he made his return to her Tardis, the Master found himself making shushing noises and cooing at the Doctor. Upon his realization of what he was doing there was a sharp pain in his hearts, not of something that was detrimental to him but caused by memory. In their early years at the academy, the Doctor would make those very same noises to him when he woke in the night from a nightmare and he would do the same for her when she feared what her mind concocted in the abyss of sleep. When he finally did make it back to the Tardis, slow and steady he had been, the Master headed straight for the med bay. He laid her down with a gentleness that he did not want to admit he had in him before running off to set the Tardis in flight once more. As he reached the console room he could hear the echoes of numerous Judoon footsteps making their way down to the solitary confinement cells. They had found out that the Doctor had escaped. 

He knew not where to go, only that his friend was in dire need of aid, “If you care for her go somewhere! Anywhere! Far from here preferably!” He demanded of the Tardis. Unlocking any and all breaks he had previously set, the Master ran back into the bowels of the Tardis for his friend and was positively giddy when he heard the ship dematerialize. Not that he showed his joy in any way. 

The Doctor had not moved from where he had laid her down, everything down to the strands of short blonde hair were in the exact same place. Getting right to work, the Master made work with trying to remove the remains of the overcoat. It pained him to think that she might have tried to use the flimsy fabric as a sort of defensive shield in her time there. He hadn’t managed to get from the prisoners of the colony just how long she had been in Judoon custody but, deep down, he knew that she had been with them the year that he had had her Tardis. When he had managed to remove the tattered coat, he saw the grotesquely colored bruises in various states of healing that covered her arms; he could only see the ones exposed by the pushed up sleeves of her once white undershirt however. Part of him knew that these were not her only defensive wounds. 

Even though she was unconscious and unlikely to be able to register anything he said to her, he spoke to her in quiet hushed tones. “You’re safe, love. You’re aboard your Tardis and I will do everything I can to make sure you get back to thwarting any schemes of mine.” 

Had he been able to see himself with her, the Master would have questioned where the gentleness was coming from. It hadn’t been long after regenerating that he had found himself back on Gallifrey and in turn hacking into the matrix. He knew that what he had discovered had enraged him and led to the destruction of Gallifrey, for what they had done to his friend, but he hadn’t been in his current body long enough to figure out how this current one was. Maybe this one was of a gentler nature than those that had come before. Maybe the gentleness that accompanied O hadn’t been a lie. Nevertheless, he did not have the time to dwell on those possibilities at that time.

As he ran through a series of tests to see the full extent of the Doctor’s injuries, the Master told her exactly what he was doing in those very same hushed tones. Had she been awake he would not have told her what he was doing. Well, had she been awake he might not have even helped her. A part of him, the small voice in the back of his head that was still angry about the revelation of the Timeless Child, wanted nothing more than for the rest of him to abandon her; however, the larger part of him, the one that had become more caring and loving by the minute wanted nothing more than to see her awake and safe. Maybe Koschei was making his return and beating out the Master for once. 

When all the results had come back, he set to work starting whatever medications and fluids she needed for the time being. The Tardis was surprisingly helpful with this. Gently he turned over her right arm, making sure to avoid putting too much pressure on any bruising, and carefully inserted the IV. “We’ll have to get some fluids in you, you’re severely dehydrated, my dear. There’s nothing in this that will harm you, I promise you,” he had yet to lose the quiet voice when he spoke to her. After that he started her up on the series of medications that would begin to repair the internal damage done during her time with the Judoon. He also placed an oxygen mask over her face to help with her breathing. She had a low, almost dangerously so, level of oxygen in her blood. The tests had also shown that she, while in Judoon custody, had recently overcome severe cases of pneumonia and sepsis. Not to mention the 2 fractured lower ribs that had also been discovered. While the Master hadn’t been fond of the Judoon before, he wouldn’t have minded seeing all traces of them burn away from the universe at his hand now. 

He quickly stepped out to retrieve some ice for the ribs. Knowing it might relieve some of the pain, the Master was unsure if she could feel anything at the moment and if he would be trying for her sake or for his. Returning with a small bag of ice, he gently set it over the fracture site of both ribs without moving her blue t-shirt or the undershirt. He moved a chair close to her bedside so that he could not only keep an eye on the machines she was now hooked up to but also he was close by her currently iced ribs. In a few minutes he would take off the bag of ice. Sitting down, he forced himself to take deep breaths and relax as much as he was capable of at that moment while knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to fully until she was herself again. For a second he closed his eyes and rolled his head back before looking at her once more. What caught his eye however was just beyond her. Seemingly thrown haphazardly was his purple coat which he remembered leaving in the console room, the Tardis must have had other ideas. He looked to where he had set the remains of her own coat in contemplation. While her coat was in tatters it was hers, but he refused to lay the remains of it over her. What was left looked flimsy and covered in stains he chose not to investigate while his own he knew was of a thick, warm material. Cells facing outwards to the vacuum of space were always the ones he hated most, they were cold and drafty and no matter what you did you’d never be warm. If she had been there in that cell for almost a year, then it would have been almost a year since she last felt warmth on her skin. A year, or nearly a year, was nothing to a Timelord but it could still feel like an eternity at times. 

Getting up from his seat, the Master retrieved his coat for her. Before setting it over her he checked the bag of ice and the chill it had left on her. He removed the bag of ice, opting to set it down on a hereby tray, then laid his coat over her. Moving back the tray so it would not get in his way, the Master sat back down and watched her. He took in the little sounds that came from the various different medical instruments that monitored her in a way he couldn’t. That little bit of Koschei that had taken over his body and mind forced his way forward. The Master found himself setting a gentle kiss on his friend’s forehead and just hovering there for a moment with closed eyes. This new gentle side was not one he knew how to fully reconcile and manage, there was a softness that he absolutely could not show the universe. He had a reputation to uphold. That little voice in the back of his head, the one that hadn’t wanted to help the Doctor, tried telling him that he shouldn’t even show this side to her once she was awake. But, in a way, she had already seen this side while he was O. The more he thought about it the more he came to realize that she knew this regeneration and personality better than he did. “You’re safe, love.” 

With a shaky breath the Master sat back down and looked over the vulnerable form of his oldest friend. Truly for the first time in all his lives, the Master was terrified for his friend’s life. 

His mind had drifted as he sat beside her, still wide awake but lulled into inactivity with the constant and repetitive sounds emanating close by. It was a change in those sounds that brought him back to reality though. The sound of a deep breath, even from behind a mask, emanated from the Doctor. It reminded him of how she would wake up at the Academy after a good night’s rest. Immediately his eyes snapped up to hers, and while her eyes were still closed he waited. He did not know when she would fully wake up but, with Koschei having taken over his body, he would wait until she did. Time faded away as he watched her, first it was her breathing that changed and then it was the furrowing of her eyebrows. While he did not see it, as he was too concentrated on her face, one of her hands moved in a way that could be seen as her subconscious reaching out to him. In anticipation he now stood at her side, it was then that he felt the light touch of her hand against him. Koschei once again took over, grabbing her hand and lifting it closer to him, he kept her hand encased in his own as he lightly kissed her battered knuckles. Had any of his past selves, except maybe Missy, seen him now they’d have thought him pathetic. Except Koschei, he would have done just the same as he was doing now. 

He kept her hand in his and close to him but let go with one. With this newly freed hand he brushed aside a few strands of blonde hair that earlier he had not realized had fallen on her face. Setting down her hand, having decided he could not risk her waking and seeing him be sentimental, he moved a short distance from her to check the readings of her vitals. When all seemed good, he took one final look at her for now. 

“You can wake now,” this time he chose not to use a pet name for her, something he found difficult to do. The Master looked at her and decided to step out for a moment. He knew not if this was so that she would wake alone or that he could regain some semblance of composure but, when he neared the door to the med bay a quiet and cracked voice set every one of his senses ablaze.

“Kos?”

He turned back to face her without saying a word. She was still laying on the bed, barely having moved. 

“Master?”

He felt he would have broken had she actually called him ‘Koschei’. Her eyes were just barely open but he could see that they had searched him out.

From the door he responded as he feared if he moved he’d end up running to her side. He had a reputation to uphold, even if she knew what was under everything. “Yes?”

Her eyes closed again as she moved her head slightly. “Thank you.” And with that, he assumed the calming bliss of sleep and darkness retook her. She could not see the smile he gave her. 

He left to go retrieve some of the books he had been storing in his room, or the Doctor’s now that she was here, to take back with him to the med bay. If she was going to be in and out of sleep then he had to have something to keep him entertained. It did not surprise him to see that she was still asleep when he returned, not that he’d dare leave her for long while she was in this state. Once again, that smile returned.


	2. Chapter 2

That smile.

That one smile.

It was one that could destroy his reputation had anyone been around to see it. That smile was one the Master reserved for only one individual, and they’d never be allowed to see it with their own eyes. 

The Master sat back in his chair next to the Doctor’s bed and began to read in order to occupy his time. After three books, he had lost track of time as well as his wakefulness. He told himself he’d get through one more chapter but was unable to do so. The book fell against him and he too was lulled off to the sweet bliss of sleep. 

__

When the Doctor awoke next the Master was asleep next to her bed. He had obviously been reading when he’d fallen asleep if the book on his chest was anything to go off of. The Doctor knew she should be weary of him, and all that he had done to her in the past, but she couldn’t help the feeling that maybe this time would be different. Every time she felt like it could be different but it never was, except maybe with Missy for a few decades. For now, her mind would not let her dwell on the possibilities of what could happen and why he had chosen to be by her side; however, her eyes were rather keen to watch him as he was. While he was awake there was a manic and wild look in his eyes that radiated throughout his entire body, in this body he seemed to be consumed by insanity. However, he was not awake and the wild manic was not spread throughout him. In sleep he looked at peace and in a way, as they said on Earth, almost angelic. He was relaxed. Peaceful, relaxed, and angelic were words she would not have attributed to the Master in many millennia but, now they seemed to describe him perfectly. 

The longer she looked at him the more familiar she became with seeing him in this state. Like this she was reminded of O, of those late nights where she couldn’t sleep and would text him on a whim. She was reminded of those sweet words he would send her in the early hours of Earth before the sun broke over the horizon. With him in the arms of blissful sleep, she was reminded of the photos of himself he’d send her while she was in this body. While he’d met her whilst she was in, what she considered, her eleventh body, there hadn’t been any exchange of photographs. Between Amy, River, and Clara, one of them was bound to find out and come asking. And while there had been a lack of photos with her eleventh self, there had been a lack of anything with her twelfth. He had been rude and cared not for the MI6 agent that his previous self-had been so taken by. Upon regenerating into her current body and remembering not only her sense of self but also on a moment's break for her fam, she had sent him a text stating that she had regenerated again and that she was sorry for the lack of any contact over the past few years. 

Thinking of it now, the Doctor thought that he must have thought it hilarious that she would apologize to him whom she then thought was but a human. 

But, nevertheless, she had told him of her latest regeneration and during the night that followed she’d sent him a poorly planned out selfie only after he’d sent her one first. For the longest time she’d kept her phone safe and hidden without wanting to admit that that first selfie had made it to her home screen. And in those late nights after that, those ones where sleep was elusive to her, he became her closest confidant. Thinking of it now sent a pain through her hearts. Had he been lying to her all that time? Was this regeneration as genuine and kind, under all the madness, as he had shown her? He was the Master and he played the long game. O was probably just another character, another façade to play with, in his games to torment her. He probably meant nothing to him. The Doctor, losing once more to the alluring darkness of sleep, took a look once more at him. A final nail in the coffin that was her hearts had been him, she’d loath to admit that she might have loved O the tiniest of bits. That would make sense though, ever since they were young, the man beside her had always held her hearts in his hand.

Once more, sleep retook her as she was looking at the Master.

___

It was the book sliding off him and colliding with the floor that woke the Master. He thought, for a few short moments at least, that maybe there had been a change in the Doctor and that had been what had woken him. But, alas, it was not. Though it was evident that she had woken at some point as her head was angled towards him. He gathered his book from the floor to set it with the stack he had brought in before moving to check every reading coming from the surrounding machines. For the first time in the almost year he had taken up residency aboard her Tardis, the Doctor’s ship willingly made a telepathic link with him. Over it he felt a warm and gentle sensation that was akin to what one might feel when they’d been told that everything would be alright.

He found himself standing at her side but with his head to the ceiling, “Thank you.” 

Whilst he stood by her he could not help but think of how extraordinarily alike this regeneration was to the boy he’d met at the Academy. For the first time in all of her regenerations that he had met, she was a near mirror image to little Theta Sigma. In sleep the resemblance was so uncanny that it was nearly painful to look at. He hadn’t the time earlier to actually look at the careful contours of her face or the tiniest of details that now made up her, and her inability to send selfies had not helped while they had been apart, but now he could see it. From the colors of her hair being mismatched with itself to the careful features of her face, she truly and honestly looked like what he’d always envisioned Theta Sigma to have looked like during his first years away from Gallifrey. In those first years where he had been separated from him. 

He forced himself to look away so as not to lose his mind to the vast pit of his own memory. Instead he focused on the various numbers that were being spit out of the machines that watched her vigilantly, this too did not help him as he would have liked. His mind conjured up the memory of a young Theta Sigma terribly ill and the only time he had been allowed to see him during that summer. They had both been so young then and had yet to learn all the pains that life would bring. In their years they had been hopeful and bright but that summer had been one of blanketing darkness and uncertainty. It had not helped that he, the young Master, had not been allowed to see his friend and it was only after constant pestering that he had finally been able to. That one time he had been allowed to set eyes on the other boy had been a time where the other hadn’t the strength to do the same. And in that moment, at barely ten years of age, the young Master had sworn to himself that he would never allow the universe to see his friend in such a state again. 

Once again he moved a lock of hair away from her face with a gentle prayer of, “You’re safe.”

The Master was not one to have hope, but hope was necessary for survival. 

He sat back down and took up his book once more however this time he could not stop himself from reaching over and taking her hand in his once more. A book in one hand and her in the other was just the sort of peace the Master had craved upon gaining this body. For he was hers and she knew him better than he knew himself. When time slipped away once more her hand was still in his. 

___

Whilst she had been reclaimed by sleep, it was evident that he had been awake. She thought that he might not have meant to fall asleep once more, much less with his hand in hers. In a futile attempt, the Doctor tried to move closer to the edge of the bed. This did not work. In a moment’s notice a sharp pain shot up through her side as she remembered the latest injury to her ribcage. The movement had aggravated the site and from that small action she deemed any further movement at the moment useless. Any movement would likely only cause her more pain. So, she stopped. The Doctor sat back once more and looked at the master once more for however long she would be awake this time. 

When the pain had hit, she barely registered the hiss in pain she had let out but he hadn’t. She knew he was sound asleep, if there was anything that had carried over from regeneration to regeneration it was the Master’s uncanny ability to sleep through almost anything, but his face had scrunched up at the sound of her. When she settled herself back down onto her bed he relaxed once more. Out of her lower peripheral the Doctor saw, what looked like, a purple sleeve move. It was a distinctive color but still looked how it had when she was on Gallifrey with him, minus the red sand and dust of course. He had lain it over her for warmth. Even if he had managed to rescue her from the Judoon, he could have just abandoned her somewhere in the universe. But he hadn’t. The Master had taken care of her, if the ambient sounds were anything to go off of as well as the appearance that she was in a Tardis med bay and had lain his coat over her to keep her warm. He still cared for her. Even if he had been hurt by the revelation of the Timeless Child, he still cared for her. The one person that, in all her years, she had been able to look at and think ‘ _ I could spend the rest of my lives with you’ _ still cared.

Unknowingly, the Doctor slipped back into sleep with a smile. 

___

When the Master woke once more it was not a calm affair. It had been the machine behind him that had awoken him all of the sudden. While the last time he had checked, the Doctor’s vitals had been safe and stable that was not the case this time however. His promise that she was safe had been broken. Her heart rates were increasing at an alarming rate and she had gained an incredibly high fever in a short amount of time. On top of that, the secondary readings were showing that there was also an increase in her breathing and circulation. Evidently, her body was trying to fight off the fever but with everything else that had happened to her during her time with the Judoon the Master feared the worst. Fear, that was an emotion he’d have to comprehend how to manage in himself at a later date. Right now, he didn’t have the time to deal with frivolous little emotions. 

He thought back to the medical classes he had been required to take at the Academy, the ones he had told others he thought were unnecessary but knew he had to pay attention to every little bit of information in case he ever needed to help Theta medically. What they had been taught had been for Timelords which the Master thought might have been an issue here. But, if the Doctor was the Timeless Child and therefore the genetic foundation for Timelord society then theoretically the same medical logic would apply. He knew she had two hearts and a respiratory bypass, among others, as all other Timelords had. Therefore, maybe early Timelords had been genetically altered so that their internal make up matched that of the Timeless Child and had been what was passed down over the last, however many, millennia. If it were a medical practice that worked for Timelords then it should work on the Timeless Child. 

The first thing he set about doing was trying to lower her fever, and quickly. He remembered one of his cousins when he was younger had been sick and ended up with a fever as well. For her they had packed ice around her to cool her down, but they had already had an inkling that she might get worse. The ice had already been on hand just in case. He, however, hadn’t suspected that the Doctor would develop a fever. There was always the possibility that she might get worse, but the idea of a fever had never crossed his mind. In turn, he’d never say a word to another living soul of what he did next. If he had regained any of his suave sophistication that he tried to project it was lost in an instant, and it was probably for the best that it didn’t come back for a while. The master ran like the madman he was to the nearest ice dispenser aboard the Tardis in an effort to retrieve as much as he could get for his friend. Like hell he was actually going to let her suffer. It took three runs to get enough ice to not only safely pack around her but also to have extra on hand. When he had decided that there was enough around her, he took a length of fabric he had found lying in the med bay and wrapped up some of the extra ice to lay on her forehead. 

The Master was too focused on her to notice that the Tardis had once again decided to help him out, an ice box had been added to the med bay. 

___

This time, while the Master stood watch over her, the Doctor slipped into what felt like a fever dream. 

The two of them, just barely ninety years old, running amongst the tall red grass that covered the south side of Mount Perdition. Neither of them had a care in the universe, except for each other. Koschei was ahead of Theta, who was too distracted looking up at the sky. It had been just after the first sun had set and the constellations were starting to become visible to the naked eye. Theta had collapsed on the ground so he had a better view of them, this was not how Koschei saw it though. Koschei, with the memory of his friend being deathly ill still fresh in his mind, ran down the slope to him in fear that Theta was sick again. Instead he was greeted with the sight of an awestruck Theta. No matter how many times they’d both regenerate, the Doctor would always remember the smile Koschei had given her while she lay in that field.

Theta had stretched a hand up to Koschei. He had taken it thinking that maybe the other boy wanted help standing up, he was sorely mistaken. His friend had pulled him down to join him on the grass. “That wasn’t nice, Theta.” Koschei had told him in a childlike manner.

“It got you down here didn’t it?”

Koschei moved so that he was lying next to his friend. He turned his head to the side to look at Theta, “Yes, it did.”

At that point in their lives they had both known that they liked each other more than a simple crush. Neither had told the other one of their affections though. It was an unspoken rule at the Academy that relationships between students were strictly prohibited and while both of them were rather rebellious, neither one of them would try anything that could possibly destroy their friendship. 

Theta turned his head to the side to look at Koschei and he could have sworn, in that moment, he saw more beautiful constellations in his friend’s eyes than the ones above them. Neither one knew who leaned in first but, as first kisses go, it could have been worse.

___

The Master found himself crumpled at her bedside, he had hit the floor before even realizing he had been falling. He reached up to grab her hand only to be met with ice cold skin. Like he had before, the Master closed her hand in his for a moment.

“You’re safe, please, I won’t let anything happen to you here,” he thought for the thousandth time if anyone were to hear him, his reputation would be ruined. To add fuel to the fire of his dying reputation, he placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles.

With heavy hearts he let go of her hand without wanting to. One of his now chilled hands reached behind him to pull his, now abandoned, chair closer to him. The act of forcing one’s self to get up and sit in a chair as opposed to the ground is an argument within themselves that is likely to be lost, the Master had had this argument numerous times before. But, he couldn’t watch the readings from the ground and he could directly watch the Doctor from there either. There was no one here to watch his reputation crumble, only a temperamental Tardis that didn’t like him and a former lover who lay unconscious. The distance from the ground to the seat of the chair wasn’t far but it still felt like a million miles away for him, he reassured himself that he’d be able to see her better that way though. 

Sat in his chair he simply watched her. He reached over across the ice and across her so that he could cup her cheek with his hand like he used to so many years ago. Now, in this state, she did not look like she was the Timeless Child and the first building block for the society he had grown up in. She looked like someone who was desperate to hang on to life but the universe had other ideas for her. To him she looked like someone he’d willingly face down death for. And, in a way, he already had. He’d willingly do it again too if he had to. It wasn’t often the Master would willingly admit the lengths they’d go to, in any incarnation, for the Doctor. He’d found out that the Timelords had been hurting her since she was a child, long before he’d ever known her and before the Oakdowns even existed. For that he had hurt them in retaliation which had in turn hurt her. He hadn’t meant to, thinking she might have been able to see his reasoning, but hurting her meant he had cracked the foundation of the only home he’d ever known- Theta Sigma, the Doctor… _ her.  _

With one hand still on her cheek he moved his other arm so that he could lay his head on top of it without directly touching the ice that surrounded her. He cared not for the state of himself and the ice that was likely to melt and get soaked up by not only his sleeve but the rest of his shirt as well. “Please, my love, come back. You’re safe here, I promise I’ll end all of my scheming. Please, just come back to me.” Being so close to the ice, he tried to reason that if there was any water on his face it was somehow from the already melted ice. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....it seems that there is a continuation...


	3. Chapter 3

He did not keep track of how long it had been until he had decided to removed the ice from around her body. The ice had melted down, leaving water soaking into not only her clothing but the bed she was laying on as well, and her temperature had begun to slightly fall. While said temperature was still higher than he would have liked, the Master knew there was only but so much he was able to do. He chose not to surround her in ice again for the time being, just to see how far her temperature might fall before it began to climb again but did decide to replace the ice nearest her head. The Master didn’t know when she would wake again but thought that it would be awful to wake at the highpoint of a fever, it had been several thousand years since it had last happened to him but he still remembered the experience in excruciating detail.

He couldn’t stop the quiet, “You’re safe, my love,” that escaped his lips while he set a new bag of ice on her forehead. 

For two hours he had been watching the monitors that kept every reading of the Doctor’s current state. Her temperature had fallen and, as it seemed, the rest of her body had begun to fall back into a semi natural state. He had his back turned to her when she slowly woke up. 

The Doctor’s eyes, though heavy with recent sleep, followed his every movement. She waited for him to turn back around as her vision began to focus again. If he ever realized it or not, she’d always wait for him. Although she might loath to admit it, the Doctor found this incarnation of the Master appealing in a sort of way she hadn’t thought of in a long time. While in her previous form the Doctor had found the Master, or Missy as she had then preferred, equally appealing and intriguing. However, the Doctor had felt it would have been wrong to “go after” Missy in the sort of way she had figured they had both wanted to some degree. Missy having tried many times over the course of her time in the vault to advance their relationship beyond the bizarre friendship they had achieved. But the Doctor, as her jailer, had felt it would have been morally wrong and stopped her advances at each attempt. 

The Doctor then realized one thing. She was not the Master’s jailer any longer, while on legal terms she should have been they both knew that they wouldn’t be able to manage the remaining nine-hundred odd years or so. They both had barely managed the first seventy. For the next nine hundred years they’d just have to avoid Rafando and the Executioners. 

While she was watching him, the Doctor heard him speaking in a soft voice. She could not discern if this was towards her or to himself but she did remember “O” talking to himself on occasion. Remembering “O” was still painful to the Doctor, in some ways more painful than any of the harm the Judoon had done. “O” had been the perfect lie, the perfect character for the Master to play so that he could work his way back into the Doctor’s hearts – as if they’d ever left - and strike where it hurt most. And hurt it had. 

When he did turn around, the Master could feel his hearts in his throat in an instant. While this incarnation of the Doctor hadn’t been the best at taking selfies and he had only seen her in-person once as “O”, the Master had found that his favorite attribute about this new Doctor was her eyes. Those green eyes that had haunted him in the dead of night when he should have been angry at her but he had instead been texting her in a dreamlike state while under the guise of a wide eyed and curious human. It had been those very same eyes, bright as the day he had first met the Doctor, that had managed to capture the attention of the Master while there were still yards apart in the Outback. Those green eyes that crushed his failing soul as he told her on Gallifrey of the horrid truths he had discovered. In those same eyes had been the pain and moral superiority that had nearly brought them to death on that very same planet. To the Master, in all the times he had interacted with this Doctor, either in person or virtually, it had been her eyes and the way she looked at him that could very well nearly bring him to his knees. He was stood a bit away from her now, but he could see that there was hope in her eyes now. She had given up on him, had given up on Missy who he knew she had loved dearly, but she still had hope. The longer he stared, unmoving and frozen in time, the more he could see of an underlying sadness to her eyes. Hope and sadness, the eternal characteristics of his Doctor. 

“Koschei?” Her quiet plea had thawed him and brought him kneeling to her bedside before he could even hear her say the ending of his own name.

Damn his reputation. Damn how the universe viewed him. Damn everything. He grabbed her hand again and cupped her cheek as well, “Theta?” He could hear the pressing want to cry in his own voice. It disgusted him. He hated how this incarnation of his was soft and easy to cry. Oh, how he hated it even more when he felt the tears begin to well up in his eyes. Those tears fell when she spoke.

“Hello, dear,” the Master had always been the one with the pet names, every incarnation had more often than not called her by one of them instead of her name. She guided her hand away from him. This time around she hadn’t been fond of touch, but as always, the Master was one that made her question her own self. She could see him stop breathing for a moment as she interlocked her fingers with his. There would be a later time for her to question him and all he had done but, for now she was beginning to like having him close again. 

If she could have found it in her to make herself speak again, the Doctor would have maybe laughed at how he gapped like a fish when he tried to speak to her. Laughter was something that didn’t come easy to her latest incarnation but, the Doctor figured it was just another way that the Master managed to slip around the rules. She could almost see him short circuiting in front of her. Part of the Doctor was tempted to kiss his hand just to see what he’d do, she was fairly sure it would be to mess with him but the tiniest voice in the back of her head wished her to kiss him somewhere else.

In a span of a few short seconds, the Doctor had learned three new things about her latest self. The first was that she liked having the Master close to her. She figured this was logical given how much time they had spent in close quarters over the years, it shed light on why she had liked the idea of keeping O close. The second and third were both ways that the Master managed to bend her rules so that they would not apply to him, another thing that the Master had always managed to do. This body wasn’t quick to laugh and hated displays of affection but, yet again, it seemed that those rules of self-did not matter when the Master was involved. 

When the Doctor was stable, not quite herself again but at least stable, she managed to convince the Master that she should be moved to her room instead of remaining in the Tardis med bay. She had never liked the cold feeling it gave off and while he was reluctant to agree he did relent. The Doctor knew that she shouldn’t be trusting the Master right now, she was injured and he had a history of putting her in vulnerable situations. But, right now, no matter if he realized it or not, his mind was wide open and his thoughts were spilling into her mind. He was fearful and scared for her but also immensely angry at the Judoon. There was an underlying current of protectiveness and love that the Doctor could feel from him that she was sure that he was trying to hide. 

He wasn’t going to do anything that would bring her harm, right now that would break him.

Once they had managed to get her back into her room, which had been a task unto its self, the Doctor could immediately tell that the Master had had her Tardis while she was with the Judoon and he had stayed in her room. She knew he’d give her an excuse that it would be safer for him if he was in a room the Tardis wouldn’t tamper with but she knew that that wasn’t his only reason. 

The Doctor had changed out of her damp clothes before laying down in her own bed. While her back was turned the Master tried to leave the room, she wasn’t going to let him. She knew that he would be protective over her and that she could use that to her advantage if need be. 

“Kosch?” She said once she had laid down again, she thought that this mattress was much too soft for her now. 

He turned back to her but didn’t say a word.

“Please?,” it was a gentle plea of hers.

He eyed her for a second before slowly moving back towards her. The Doctor tried her best to shift herself to one side of the bed to clear a space for him.

“Stay,” she hoped.

Her Koschei was reluctant but gave in to his own wants. He removed his shoes and waistcoat before laying beside her. 

“You’re safe, love,” and this time he knew he wasn't lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was all one piece but I just liked what became the first part and hated the rest of it. The rest of it had to be edited like hell since it was written when I was half asleep. This is also why this part is so short compared to the others.

**Author's Note:**

> I have both an idea of a continuation of this or as a series of shorts...which one?


End file.
